Thursday, December 25, 2008

A Matter of History

One of the major issues that the pro-"Palestine" Arabs and their supporters mention is that "their country" was "taken away" from them.

In fact, all of the enlightened persons dealing with the issue of the future of the territory of the Holy Land during and immediately after the First World War, whether in government, international bodies, etc., all considered the area of "Palestine" to belong exclusively to the Jews, therin to reconstitute the Jewish National Home albeit minority rights needed to be protected.

These rights, however, were only what we would term these days as "personal rights", "civil liberties", "human rights", etc.

Proof?

Here, you will note that the sole matter bothering those who were involved in the deliberations during June 1922 of the League of Nations regarding the awarding the Mandate over Palestine to Great Britain was the question whether religious rights of non-Jews would be protected.

As Lord Balfour stated therein:

Some anxiety had been expressed in certain quarters lest the mandatory system as applied to Palestine should have some injurious effects upon the religious interests of any great Christian body. He could express nothing but surprise that any human being could suppose that Christian interests should suffer by the transfer of power in Palestine from a Mohammedan Power to a Christian Power, especially when that Christian Power was Great Britain. He did not think that he would be contradicted when he said that no Power had shown itself more equitable in its treatment of different religious creeds. It would be universally admitted by those who knew Great Britain's practice that the various forms of Christian religion within her own territories had been dealt with with the utmost fairness and generosity. Great Britain was a Protestant country, but he did not believe that there was any country, Protestant or Catholic, in which the Catholic religion had received fairer or more generous treatment than it had within the British Isles. It was not credible, therefore, that places possessing sacred associations with large bodies of Christian believers should in any way suffer by being taken away from Mohammedan authority and put under a Christian mandatory. This was all the more difficult to believe when it was remembered that whatever was done in Palestine at that moment, or in the future, was done in the full light of day. The machinery of the Mandates Commission, of the Council and of the Assembly of the League was so contrived as to make it quite impossible for any transaction of general interest to take place except in the full glare of public opinion. Under these circumstances, there was no chance of deliberate injustice or careless administration being permitted to exist in Palestine. Lord Balfour concluded by saying that he had explained why the delay had occurred in the definition of the Palestine mandate, and why the final juridical settlement of the whole question would still have to be delayed.

He proposed that the question of the Palestine mandate should come up before the Council anew, and that the meeting at which it was to be discussed should take place within six weeks.

Nothing mentioned about Arab "rights", not national, territorial or political. Only concern for religious rights.

And funnily enough, it is the Jews today that suffer infringement of their religious rights on the Temple Mount and at Joseph's Tomb and the Shalom Al Yisrael Synagogue in Jericho, for example.

About Me

American born, my wife and I moved to Israel in 1970. We have lived at Shiloh together with our family since 1981. I was in the Betar youth movement in the US and UK. I have worked as a political aide to Members of Knesset and a Minister during 1981-1994, lectured at the Academy for National Studies 1977-1994, was director of Israel's Media Watch 1995-2000 and currently, I work at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem. I was a guest media columnist on media affairs for The Jerusalem Post, op-ed contributor to various journals and for six years had a weekly media show on Arutz 7 radio. I serve as an unofficial spokesperson for the Jewish Communities in Judea & Samaria.